Phone cloning is more than mere archiving of data stored in a mobile phone on a remote server for retrieval from an alternate client, which is typical of services that are currently available for Android-based mobile phones having access to the currently popular Gmail™ mail system sponsored by Google™. Phone cloning also involves placing a computer chip into the target mobile telephone, allowing the electronic serial number (ESN) of the mobile phone to be modified. The ESN is normally transmitted to the cellular company in order to ascertain whether the mobile phone user is the legitimate owner of that phone. Modifying the ESN as well as the phone number itself (known as the mobile identification number, or MIN), however, paves the way for fraudulent calls, as the target telephone is now a clone of the telephone from which the original ESN and MIN numbers were obtained.
Cloning has been shown to be successful on code division multiple access (CDMA) but rare on the Global System for Mobile communication (GSM), one of the more widely used mobile telephone communication systems. Cloning GSM phones, however, is achieved by cloning the SIM card contained within it, not necessarily any of the phone's internal data (GSM phones do not have ESN or MIN, only an IMEI number). There have been various methods used to obtain the ESN and MIN; the most common are to crack the cellular company, or eavesdrop on (sniff) the cellular network.
Unfortunately, phone cloning in its current state and practice is viewed negatively in the art. In fact, phone cloning is outlawed in the United Kingdom by the Wireless Telephone Protection Act of 1998, which prohibits knowingly using, producing, trafficking in, having control or custody of, or possessing hardware or software knowing that it has been configured to insert or modify telecommunication identifying information associated with or contained in a telecommunications instrument so that such instrument may be used to obtain telecommunications service without authorization. The effectiveness of phone cloning is limited. Every mobile phone contains a radio fingerprint in its transmission signal, which remains unique to that mobile phone despite changes to the device's ESN or MIN. Thus, cellular companies are often able to catch cloned phones when there are discrepancies between the fingerprint and the ESN or MIN.
The present inventors believe that there is a growing need for mobile phone users to clone their mobile communications devices. Mobile phones have become essential to everyday living for more than one billion users as of the date that this patent document was filed by the present inventors. Mobile phone users have all experienced times when their devices have been mistakenly left behind while traveling, ran out of battery charge or are otherwise unavailable because of work constraints. Under these circumstances, users may still have a need to monitor incoming calls, call logs, incoming data messages, contact lists, and may also want to return incoming communications from the phone number associated with their mobile device. There are no solutions in existence today that provide such services or that solve the problem where mobile phone users do not have access to their mobile phone for communications and data retrieval.